


On Second Thought, Third

by zoicite



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-23
Updated: 2011-04-23
Packaged: 2017-10-18 14:02:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/189627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zoicite/pseuds/zoicite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Donna has second thoughts when left alone in the TARDIS</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Second Thought, Third

“Well, first thing’s first,” the Doctor said once Donna had waved goodbye to her grandfather, once the TARDIS doors had been closed and they’d left Earth behind. “Let’s get you settled in.”

He grabbed two of her bags and led her through an opening that she hadn’t even realized was there. She followed him down a long corridor, turning left at the first intersection, right at the second.

“You could get lost in here,” Donna observed, trying to keep track of their path.

The Doctor looked around and then said, “Yeah, you might.”

“Is there a map or something?” she asked seriously.

“Ah, here we are,” the Doctor said, stopping abruptly so that Donna, unprepared, walked right into him, dropping her bags onto the floor.

The Doctor opened the door, the same color and size as half of the other doors they’d passed. He poked his head inside and frowned. Donna craned her neck and tried to see past him.

“Oh,” he said. “No. Wrong door. This room is missing. I’d forgotten.”

“Missing?” Donna repeated, followed the Doctor to the next doorway, watched him peak inside and smile.

“Here we are,” he said again and stepped aside to let her into the room.

The room was small and somewhat nondescript. Donna wasn’t sure what she was expecting, something alien, like the main console room that made her feel like she was inside some sort of robot sea urchin shell. This room wasn’t like that. There was a wooden bed, simple, with a blue quilt. A chest of drawers stood against one wall and a wooden desk against another. There was a full length mirror and a soft looking chair in the corner for reading. The strangest, most alien thing about the room was the fact that the bed, ordinary in every respect, was located right in the center of the room.

“Some sort of Time Lord feng shui?” she asked, setting her bags down.

The Doctor raised an eyebrow and looked confused by the question.

“I’ll go get the hat box,” the Doctor offered instead, disappeared back into the corridor leaving Donna alone in the room. Her room.

The wall without the entrance, the chest, or the desk had two doors. She opened the first and found a sizable wardrobe. Behind the second door she found a brick wall.

She removed her suit jacket and sat down on the edge of the bed. It was softer than it looked. She wondered if anyone else had slept in this room over the years.

The Doctor returned with the rest of her bags, with the hat box.

“There’s a washroom across the hall, I think. You can find food if you turn right, last door on the left before the cul de sac.”

“Where is your room?” she asked.

He began rattling off directions, down this corridor, up that one, through a few doors and across a garden, up a set of stairs. Donna wouldn’t remember, but she got the idea. He wasn’t right next door. Not that he could have been, seeing as that room was missing. He probably wouldn’t even hear her if she called for him.

It was awkward, suddenly, neither of them knowing what to say. She’d prattled on and on about Cambodia and injections and giddiness and now, now they were staring at one another as though neither one of them was prone to talking at all. The Doctor was looking at her as though he _never_ had guests, as though a new person in his space was something he had no idea how to handle.

She was beginning to have second thoughts about the whole thing.

The Doctor shoved his hands in his pockets and rolled on the balls of his feet. He cleared his throat, opened his mouth to say something, seemed to change his mind and shut it again. Donna wondered how long it had been since the last time they’d met. She wondered how long it had been for _him_. Longer than a year, surely. How long since Martha had chosen to return home? She had so many questions that she wanted to ask him, but there was something in his expression that stopped her.

“Well,” he said, finally. “I’ll let you get settled.”

“Where are we going?” she asked, suddenly, standing from the bed. She wasn’t ready to be left alone yet.

“Anywhere you want,” the Doctor offered.

She thought about it for a moment and said, “Surprise me.”

He nodded, turned back toward the hall and paused in the doorway. “Oh, and Donna?”

“Yeah?”

“Try not to get too lost.”

**

Donna stared at her luggage, unsure what to do with it. Unsure if she _should_ do anything with it. Now that she was here, alone in a bedroom on the TARDIS, she was beginning to remember all of the reasons that she’d refused to travel with him in the first place.

What did she really know about this man? This alien?

She knew that he was a little bit sad, a little bit amazing. He still frightened her, if she stopped long enough to admit it. And yet, here she was, inside an immense _box_ with a man she’d searched for for months but had only really known for twelve hours or so, most of those spent fighting to survive.

The thing was, she felt more alive during those twelve hours than she had during the thirty five years that had come before. That was the part that really scared her. That was why she was here. She thought that as long as she remembered that everything would be fine.

She stared at her bags a moment longer and then the TARDIS jerked, shuddered into gear, something – the Doctor must have pushed a button, pulled a lever. The sudden movement of the room snapped her out of her trance and she began pushing the suitcases and bags into the large wardrobe. Now wasn’t the time for hanging clothes. She opened the largest suitcase and pulled out a change of clothes, something a bit more comfortable. She tied her hair back and stared at herself in the mirror.

Donna Noble, Time Traveler.

And then she left the room.

She turned left, stopped in front of the next door. The room was missing, the Doctor had said. Curious, she tried the knob. It opened easily. She didn’t know what she expected, another brick wall perhaps. She didn’t expect _nothing_. Literally, nothing. Just blackness, like you could fall forever. There was a slight empty howling sound and she sucked in her breath and shut the door, leaned against it.

The howling was gone now. There was just the steady hum of the TARDIS.

She wondered again if she was insane to be here at all.

Donna checked out the washroom and the pantry and then she tried to retrace her steps back to the safety of the robot sea urchin. She turned right and then left, took the liberty of peaking behind a few more doors along the way. She found a huge wardrobe, what looked to be some sort of theater, bedrooms that didn’t look as though they’d been touched since the ‘70s. She turned a corner and found herself in a room with haphazardly labeled crates, turned another and ended up in a library littered with papers.

There was enough space in this police box for a dozen passengers, probably more.

She opened one door and found another maze of hallways shoved inside. She shut that door quickly, concerned that she could really end up lost if she even thought about entering.

The TARDIS had a lot of space for thought, and Donna found herself questioning again. Alien. Twelve hours. So far from home. She was a secretary, a temp. 100 words per minute and the fastest shorthand of anyone she’d met. She wasn’t an adventurer, a time traveler.

There were some areas that felt abandoned, rooms covered in dust, furniture with sheets thrown over it. She found two other missing rooms, a corridor that had been filled with sand, and a room that contained towels and goggles and flippers, various pool toys. She didn’t find a pool anywhere.

It was so quiet. The faint hum was the only real sound. It was the kind of white noise that could play tricks on the ears. Sometimes she thought she heard whispers, voices just around corners.

There were locked doors as well. She wondered what was behind them. She tried to guess. Rose’s room must be behind a locked door. That one seemed pretty obvious to her, even after only twelve hours of shared history.

There it was again, the whispering. Donna stopped walking, closed her eyes and tried to listen.

Leave him, she thought. Ask to go home. Turn around. You can’t do this. And then nothing but the dull hum and the sound of her own breathing.

Here she was, on a ship in space with a man she hardly knew. Alien. Anything could happen. She could be locked away in one of these rooms, buried beneath the sand, bricked in. There was Rose and there was Martha. How sure was she that they weren’t still there? She must have been insane to think – she’d seen what he was capable of.

The air seemed to whisper her name, the syllables trapped in the hum of the ship.

She looked behind her and there was no one there.

It had seemed so wonderful after he’d gone and she’d had a year to think and now, here she was, surrounded, alone.

She ran, rushing down hallways and through doors. She turned left and right until she was sure she was running in circles. The humming of the TARDIS laughed at her, mocked her, like her whole life was some big cosmic joke. She thought about crying out, calling for him. She’d be lost forever. The TARDIS felt alive and unfriendly.

The hall ended at an intersection and she turned right, turned around to look behind her, and that was when she saw it, the familiar sea urchin glow of the console room.

She stopped and leaned over, supported herself on her knees and tried to catch her breath. She was insane to ask him to take her along. She wasn’t cut out for this. It wasn’t her. She went to her temporary jobs, lived her ordinary life. It was like her mother had always said, some people just weren’t built for adventure.

Once her breathing slowed she moved toward the light of the console room, stopping to stand in the entrance. The Doctor was there, hitting levers, moving back and forth among the controls. He grabbed for the monitor, scratched his chin, and then began speaking jargon that Donna didn’t even try to follow. It wasn’t important, the words.

The Doctor looked up, his back to Donna, and seemed surprised to realize that he was still alone.

“Anyway,” he mumbled, slapped another button with the palm of his hand.

Donna’s heart broke a little watching him. A blue box big enough for dozens of people, and here he was. He was so alone, the Doctor and his TARDIS, alone in his little universe of whispers and abandoned bedrooms. The ship was large enough to hold dozens, and here he was, talking to himself as he hurtled through time.

She was about to ask him to take her home, tell him that she couldn't handle this, that she'd been wrong about herself. Twelve hours of shared history. That was all they were, the two of them. It was nothing, really, hardly anything at all.

But now – where would he go if she left? Would he shut her room up? Close it off and let the dust settle? How long before he found someone else?

He needed a mate, someone to share space and time, fill empty corridors and bounce nonsensical jargon off of. He was sad and amazing and the most frightening man she’d ever met. It was insane, searching for him, picking everything up and leaving it behind. She was mad to think she knew him at all. But still. She looked at him standing alone, surrounded by ripped cushions and railings covered in bits of foam. She looked at his hunched shoulders, at the slightly manic energy radiating from him even now, and her heart swelled. She had a purpose here. He needed someone. She’d seen that right away. She thought that maybe he needed her.

She looked back over her shoulder at the darkened corridors of the TARDIS. It felt like a test, and she’d passed. Something told her that finding her way would be easier now, that maybe the TARDIS just needed to see that she was made of the right stuff, that she was here for the right reasons. Maybe she needed the Doctor a bit too.

She crossed the room and set a hand on his shoulder and he jumped, surprised by the sudden contact.

“You’re back,” he said. His face lit up and Donna couldn’t help but return his smile. She rubbed a hand across his back, a comforting gesture. It was probably a bit too familiar for the twelve hours that they’d shared, but it felt right. It felt like he needed it.

“We’re here,” he said. He pushed a yellow handle and the TARDIS jolted to a stop, nearly knocked them both off their feet.

“Where’s here?” she asked.

“You’re going to love it,” he assured her. “All unpacked?”

She hadn’t actually unpacked anything, but she nodded anyway.

He squeezed her shoulder and bounded to the front door. He stopped there, hands on the door handle and turned to grin at her.

“What?” She asked. His energy was contagious and she returned the smile. “What is it?’

“Nothing,” the Doctor said.

She rolled her eyes at him, shoved him a little. “Well, come on then. Open the door.”

He turned to do just that, opened it just a crack and then paused. She was going to kill him if he didn’t get on with it. Just before he stepped out into the sunlight he turned to her, his face serious. “Donna Noble. Time Traveler,” he said, as though he had no doubt in his mind that she was cut out for the task.

"Yeah," she agreed, and stepped outside.


End file.
